T-shirt Projects

It’s back to school, and how best to show your school spirit (and study hard!) than with some personalized notebooks and sketchbooks? Gather up old concert or festival tees, ratty old sports jerseys, those charming family reunion keepsakes, dad’s old tie-dyes, souvenir T-shirts from your summer adventures, and so on.

Materials:

-T-shirts

-Scissors

-Composition-style notebook or sketchbook (any book with a boardbook-style cover)

–Aleene’s Super Thick Tacky Glue

–Squeegee-like hand applicator

Make it:
1. Lay the book open on the T-shirt (arrange it over the featured logo or design). Cut through just one layer of the shirt, about 2″ outside the edge of the notebook.

2. Lay the T-shirt panel face down on your work surface. Apply glue liberally across the front cover of the book.

3. Spread the glue evenly across the cover. Be sure the glue reaches the edges, but avoid getting any glue on the pages. (You don’t want to seal the book shut! You have important note-taking to do.)

4. Fold the T-shirt fabric over the front cover and press it evenly into the glue.

5. Flip the notebook and spread glue across the spine and back cover. Then pull the remaining T-shirt fabric over the back cover, smoothing any wrinkles. Let it dry. Optional: Press the notebook between heavy textbooks to keep it flat!

6. Trim the fabric around the edges of the book cover. Use glue to touch up any edges that are pulling away from the fabric.

7. Repeat with as many notebooks and sketchbooks as you have, and you won’t ever have to trade in your T-shirts for dress shirts at the end of the summer!

My, how smart you look! For extra credit, try making this zippered T-shirt Pencil Case that Cut Out & Keep user Dessah H. made for her college-bound husband!

[ Posted on September 21st, 2010 ]